Diana’s back! After smashing records with her first critically-acclaimed solo outing and becoming the standout star of both Justice League and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Wonder Woman is returning to screens in 2020.

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Once again directed by Patty Jenkins, Wonder Woman 2 will see the Amazonian superhero battle a new enemy 70 years after the events of her first standalone film.

Who exactly is the new villain? And which characters from the 2017 film will make the huge time jump to its sequel?

Wonder Woman 1984 trailer

What is Wonder Woman 1984 about?

Set in – you’re not going to believe this – 1984, the plot will see Diana Prince come up against villain Cheetah, a British anthropologist who is gifted a few superpowers from a cheetah god. In the comics, these abilities include enhanced strength, speed and agility, plus night vision and heightened reflexes. Just think of Catwoman (and pray Cheetah won’t be anything like Halle Berry’s feline-themed hero).

“It’s not a sequel, it’s its own story,” Gadot said at last year’s San Diego Comic-Con panel. “Its own chapter, a whole new movie. The bar is very high, but our aspirations are even higher. so we just give it everything that we have and hoping what we bring you guys will love.”

Why isn’t Wonder Woman 1984 a sequel?

Warner Bros. is insisting that this second movie is not a sequel to Wonder Woman.

Film producer Chris Roven talking to Vulture said: “It’s a completely different time frame and you’ll get a sense of what Diana-slash–Wonder Woman had been doing in the intervening years. But it’s a completely different story that we’re telling. Even though it’ll have a lot of the same emotional things, a lot of humor, a lot of brave action. Tugs at the heartstrings as well.”

Apparently Jenkins was determined that Wonder Woman 1984 is the “next iteration of Wonder Woman but not a sequel”.

Despite this insistence, the film follows after Wonder Woman – quite a few years later – but it still follows on.

Who is in the cast of Wonder Woman 1984?

Gal Gadot will once again don her indestructible bracelets to play the immortal demigoddess, while Chris Pine will reprise his role as Steve Trevor.

But the poster gives us our best look at Cheetah in her human form. During a panel at CCXP, Patty Jenkins revealed the team aimed to show Cheetah’s mutation “practically”. If you’re wondering what that means, she added they “[got] to a place where you end up having to go a little further, and so, it’s got a little help, but a lot of it is very real.”

Jenkins also revealed why she cast Wiig, saying: “We were super fans of Kristen, and we love how funny she is, but also I’ve been a huge admirer of what a great actress she is for a long time. So when we needed someone to go all the way from one end of the spectrum of being funny, sweet Diana’s friend, all the way to a totally different place, we knew that Kristen Wiig would kill it, and she went beyond our wildest dreams.”

Kristen Wiig as CheetahWarner Bros

Game of Thrones and Narcos star Pedro Pascal has also been cast in a role recently confirmed as Maxwell “Max” Lord, a mind-controlling supervillain from the original DC comics who had long been rumoured to have a part in the movie.

Other confirmed cast members include Connie Nielsen and Robin Wright as Diana’s mother and aunt respectively (reprising their roles from the first film, presumably in flashback), with Natasha Rothwell, Ravi Patel, Gabriella Wilde, Kristoffer Polaha, and child actress Oakley Bull cast in as-yet-unknown roles.

There’s also a chance original Wonder Woman star Lynda Carter may appear in the film sequel, with the actor previously saying she was in talks with Jenkins. If you’ve not seen Carter’s version of the superhero, we’d recommend checking out the classic Wonder Woman series.

How is Steve back in Wonder Woman 1984?

Yep, Steve Trevor – the First World War pilot who was at least 30 years old in 1917 – will appear in Wonder Woman 1984. And not in a flashback, either. A photo of Patty Jenkins showed Trevor in a 1980s setting…

Film producer Charles Roven said: “We always wanted the date that we are on right now. The studio felt that until their slate for the year before came together—and they had an amazing end of 2018—that they needed to have a big what I call aircraft carrier, a ‘tentpole’, in [2019]. We had a very rushed pre-production because Patty also did the TNT show and we had a very rushed post-production schedule in order to make the date that we were on, which was November 1, 2019. We were doing it because the studio said they really needed it, and then at a certain point they came to us and they said, ‘You know what, you guys are right. Let’s go back to the month that you guys released Wonder Woman 1 in, and take the extra time.”

So, basically, because Wonder Woman was a huge success Warner Bros decided to let the second film run as its summer blockbuster for 2020 rather than a winter release in 2019.

Where was Wonder Woman 1984 filmed?

Gadot shared an Instagram post saying the crew filmed in four locations in three countries. Judging by the photo one of those countries was the USA.

When is Wonder Woman 2 set?

Unsurprisingly in 1984. It sounds like Jenkins is embracing the era too…

“You know what was cool? We’re treating the era differently than I’ve seen so far, which I feel like there have a lot of interesting versions of doing the era,” she said. “In our version, as a child of the ‘8os myself, yes there was funny, ha-ha outfits I can’t believe I wore, for sure.”

And Jenkins tweeted this picture of Gal Gadot against a psychedelic background as a commiseration to fans when studio WB made the call not to attend 2019’s San Diego Comic-Con.

By now you’ve heard: WB isn’t going to Hall H this year. We’re so sad to miss you there! And waiting until Dec. to start our official #WW84 campaign in full– But the truth is… we can just… barely… wait… pic.twitter.com/QllFzhYRA6

Will there be a Wonder Woman 3?

Patty Jenkins has confirmed that the Amazons are getting their own spinoff film. Jenkins said that Wonder Woman 3 is “all mapped out…it’s just a matter of will we change our minds and when.”

“We actually already know the whole story to [Wonder Woman 3] and then some because there is an Amazon [spin-off] movie, as well, and so we already have it all mapped out. It’s just a matter of will we change our minds and when.”